Video Production: “Ask a therapist: What to do if you’re feeling lonely” for ReachOut
As the producer, director, and editor of this video for ReachOut, Australia’s leading youth mental health organization, I created content that not only resonated with our target audience but also was one of their most viewed videos ever.
Key Achievements:
- The content generated dozens of positive comments from viewers, indicating a strong emotional connection and real-world impact.
- I used industry connections to recruit and direct Rashida Dungarwalla, a Registered Psychologist, ensuring the content was both authoritative and relatable.
- Through careful selection of the video title, topic, and thumbnail, I optimised for discoverability on YouTube.
- Used effective editing and directing techniques, incorporating smooth transitions, well-timed music breaks, and animations to maximise user engagement.
Balancing Impact and SEO: A Case Study in Mental Health Content
During my tenure at ReachOut, I helped to identify a critical gap in our content: ADHD resources for young people.
Using AHREFs, I discovered that ADHD-related search volumes rivaled those of depression and anxiety combined. This eye-opening insight helped to shaped our content strategy, and gave us key areas where we could create impactful, high quality content.
The Mission
My primary task was to create impactful ADHD content that aligned with ReachOut’s strategy and values, while maximizing our positive influence on young people’s mental health.
The Approach
Step 1: Extensive Research
I dug deep into ADHD, looking at scientific studies, expert advice, and what young people were searching for online. This helped us create content that was accurate and useful. I found out what questions people had about ADHD and used this to guide our writing.
Step 2: Strategic planning
With this strategy in place, we were able to created a comprehensive ADHD section for our website. This meant thinking carefully about what to include and how to present it. This allowed us to balance formats across written articles, videos, Instagram carousels.
This strategic planning also helped to address our most pressing user needs, (i.e. high-volume search queries like “Do I have ADHD?”) while also leaving room for articles meeting our org’s desire for positive, ‘strengths-based’ content.
Step 3: Work with Experts
We teamed up with a clinical psychologist, Amy Burton, fact check the articles we wrote, and also write some others herself.
Step 4: Clear, Searchable Writing
Our main article, “Do I have ADHD?”, addressed the questions people were asking, but explained exactly why diagnosis can only be done by professionals. It remains a great example of how we were able to succeed by meeting our audience in the middle.
Amy’s authorship was crucial in making our content as helpful as possible and had the added benefit of boosting our SEO ranking (Google prioritises ‘trustworthy’ sources for sensitive topics such as these).
The Impact
- Our ADHD module quickly became one of ReachOut’s top five performing pages on organic search.
- The “Do I have ADHD?” article consistently ranks on Google’s first page for related queries.
- We successfully expanded our reach to a previously underserved audience, providing crucial, ethically-sound information to young people questioning their mental health.